Noah K. Murray/The Star-LedgerJets coach Rex Ryan greets fans who showed up in hordes Saturday morning to send the team off to Pittsburgh. The brash Ryan has led the Jets to their second straight AFC title game, this time against the Steelers at 6:30 p.m. today.

Bruce Speight had prepared a list of talking points for Rex Ryan, as he always does before a news conference. But with the hated Patriots and coach Bill Belichick on the horizon, Ryan wasn’t interested.

“Bruce, I’m going to go in here and say this is personal between me and Belichick,” Ryan said earlier this month.

Rex Ryan looks ahead to AFC Championship game in PittsburghJets coach Rex Ryan addresses the media about Sunday's AFC Championship Game in Pittsburgh. Ryan discusses how his team is feeling confident, having learned from last year's AFC Championship loss to the Indianapolis Colts. (Video by Andre Malok/The Star-Ledger)

“Coach, is that how you feel in your heart?” said Speight, the Jets’ senior director of media relations.

“Yep, that’s how I feel in my heart.”

“Is every instinct in your body saying to go out there and say that?”

“Yes, every instinct in my body is saying go out there and say it.”

“Okay,” said a convinced Speight, “let’s roll with it.”

Ryan went into the room packed with reporters and — 2 minutes, 17 seconds in — he was saying, “I recognize that this week, this is about Bill Belichick vs. Rex Ryan. There’s no question, it’s personal. It’s about him vs. myself.”

For two seasons now, Ryan’s pressers have seemed almost as much about entertainment as about football. Ryan’s question-and-answer sessions are, in practice and philosophy, completely counter to the staid, sometimes rigid ones of his peers. He fires off one-liners and fearless shots at opposing coaches and quarterbacks. His self-deprecating humor is ever present. And he even has worn a wig.

But talk to people who know Ryan best, his players and associates, and they will tell you that he is not performing for the cameras or anybody. He is spontaneous and sometimes outrageous — and entirely genuine. And they will tell you that even when answering reporters’ questions, he is still coaching his team.

“It’s what we know from him,” Sanchez said. “That’s how loose he is, he’s that confident. And, in turn, that gives us confidence. He’ll be ready for the game, there’s no doubt.”

And with a victory in Pittsburgh this evening, the irreverent man at the podium will have taken the Jets to the Super Bowl.

Ending the Boredom
Since Jan. 21, 2009, Ryan has captivated more than just reporters and fans. He’s also reeled in his own players with bold statements.

During his introductory news conference, he said the team would get to meet President Obama “in the next couple years” as Super Bowl champs. Two victories from that goal, no one is laughing anymore.

The line from that day Speight will never forget: “If you take a swipe at one of ours,” Ryan said, “we’ll take a swipe at two of yours.” Speight looked across the room and saw shock on the faces of cornerback Darrelle Revis and safety James Ihedigbo.

“We were really shaking our heads like, ‘Yeah, this is the kind of guy we want to play for,’ ” Ihedigbo recalled. “His confidence quickly spread over our team like a wildfire. ... We were like, ‘This is going to be a fun coach to have.’ ”

Contrast that to what any number of coaches have said during their introductory pressers. The Giants’ Tom Coughlin spoke of “the restoration of our professionalism and the dignity of which we conduct our business” as well as needing to “focus immediately on the basic axioms which determine winning in the National Football League.” And few can recall what Ryan’s predecessor Eric Mangini said, let alone stayed awake.

“Rex is payback for all the crap we’ve had to wade through in terms of boring Jet coaches over the years,” said Newsday’s NFL columnist Bob Glauber. “It’s a long list, from Joe Walton to Bruce Coslet, Rich Kotite, Eric Mangini. Herm Edwards, Pete Carroll and Bill Parcells were good, but generally speaking, it’s been painful to go through these press conferences.”

Ryan’s act has never worn thin. Last summer during training camp, the normally raucous lunch room in Cortland, N.Y., was silent. The players were captivated by a Ryan presser.

“Everyone was fixated on the TVs,” Jets senior manager for public and media relations Jared Winley said, “like they don’t work with this man every day.”

Perhaps that’s because Ryan is exceptional at coming up with fresh material.

Having Fun
Speight walked to Ryan’s office to summon him for his Wednesday news conference before a November game against the Browns.

“Hold on, wait,” Ryan said, turning back to grab a wig of long, blond hair. “This is what we’re going to do.”

They went over the script a few times: Ryan would announce the injury report and then, before taking questions, he’d slip out the door, throw on the wig, put on a Browns hat and tuck a pillow under his pullover.

“This,” said Winley, who watches Ryan’s news conferences on the computer in his office where he laughs freely, “is work?”

Ryan also can be cunning. His praise of Colts quarterback Peyton Manning at the start of the postseason included a not-so-subtle dig at Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, saying Manning studied the game more than Brady.

Ryan is never upstaged. A week and a half ago, the first question Ryan faced had nothing to do with the Patriots game — not about Antonio Cromartie hurling profanities toward Tom Brady, or even about the season-ending injury to Jets tackle Damien Woody.

It was about the black sweater vests Ryan wears on game days, which he said originated with his desire to “cover up the boiler,” as in his ample stomach. The young questioner, on assignment for ESPN, turned to his co-worker seated behind him and flashed into her flip video camera a thumbs-up and a grin.

It isn’t all fun and games. After the news of the foot-fetish videos leaked, Ryan stood and fielded 10 questions during an uncomfortable two minutes (“It’s a personal matter,” he kept saying while swaying and grimacing) before Speight cut off the line of questioning and directed reporters back toward football.

Speight declined to discuss how Ryan handled the situation but said of his personal reaction, “It makes you want to work hard to protect him. He does inspire that loyalty. He does inspire you to want to be overprotective of him. ... You want to make sure he’s all right, you want to reassure him and you want to elevate your game to give your best effort every day to have his back the way he has yours day in and day out.”

Encouraging Individuality
Speight first met Ryan at Mangini’s football camp a few years ago. Speight needed Ryan to tape a segment for the Jets’ website during which he was asked if he’d be an NFL head coach one day.

“Yeah,” Ryan replied. “And I’m going to be a good one, too.”

From that moment, Speight knew Ryan’s self-confidence and bluntness was genuine. If it wasn’t, he probably would have spent the past week taking contrived shots at Steelers coach Mike Tomlin, whom he respects and admires.

“That’s who he is, that’s who he’s always been,” Speight said of Ryan.

That’s not to say Ryan doesn’t get help with his material. Speight will often help him perfect a one-liner, while safety Jim Leonhard said, “Rex is a thief” when it comes to stealing jokes bouncing around the locker room and using them at the podium.

The bolder the better. That’s the Ryan policy.

Of course, the downside is many people can’t wait to see someone like Ryan fail.

“Skin like an armadillo,” Speight said of Ryan.

So far, there hasn’t been a downside to Ryan’s approach. Only the upward movement of the “same old Jets, going to the AFC Championship two years in a row,” a line Ryan threw out in the postgame locker room last Sunday and then rehashed to the media.

“When I first heard him, I was like, ‘Okay ...,’” Speight said, suggesting he was cautious about Ryan at first. “But then, I thought, ‘Just because it’s different doesn’t mean it’s wrong.’

“He’s taught me that just because you’re conditioned one way doesn’t mean those things aren’t effective. He encourages everyone to be themselves.”